Reply to: Client offering Contractors Perm positions

[ratewhore]

My client looks to be interested in permanent roles, whereas i want to go direct. Cut out the pimp in the middle. By doing this the client will save £7-8 per hour, which will pay off the release fee in the long run. If i saty here for a minimum of 1 year, the client will get thier money's worth back from the agency in savings!

I personally think you'd be better off looking for a new contract. This is one of the advantages of contracting - being flexible and moving from gig to gig, meeting new people and solving new problems.

IMHO of course...

[Sockpuppet]

That be the thing. At the moment its the "hi can I have a copy of my references please" and I dont want to get to "gimme the references or i'll throw xy anz at you".

I'll try a different person (the office junior) hopefully she will see the light of day.

[TheFaQQer]

Data Protection Act? Does that apply to printed as well as electronic versions?

Should have said in the last post - yes, the Data Protection Act applies to electronically held data, and many paper-based documents.

What might be interesting is there is part of the Act which says that if they are processing data about you which is incorrect (as in your case), then you have a right to have the data corrected or removed from their system. You also have a right to compensation from their data controller if you have experienced damage and distress caused by their failure to comply with the act.

Seems there are a few ways to make sure that you get a copy of the reference - just don't burn your bridges if you have a good relationship with them!

[TheFaQQer]

If you are asking the company that provided the reference for a copy, then they don't have to give it to you, since this is exempted from the DPA:

"If someone asks for a copy of a confidential reference you have written about
them relating to training, employment or providing a service, you do not have to
provide it because of an exemption in the Act."

If you are asking the EB (i.e. the person who received the reference), then this is slightly different. If it is stored in a method that is covered by the Data Protection Act, then they need to consider your right to see it. Even if it is marked confidential, the EB needs to determine whether the contents is indeed confidential or not.

The ICO provided a guidance document last year, which says that good practice is that the reference (or certainly large parts of it) should be provided to the person who is the subject of the request. The document can be found here .

IANAL etc.

Faqqer

[Sockpuppet]

If a client has given a malicious reference, purely because he didn't like you, it's defamation. I've seen people fired for gross misconduct (including fraud in one case) and they still get a decent reference, because HR goons were scared of being sued. If it went to court, they would have to substantiate everything in the reference.
Get a copy from the agency (ask them nicely, tell the pimp there's a drink in it for him) and write to the clients HR department enclosong a copy of the reference. Tell them they have 7 days to offer you a decent cash incentive not to take this to court. If they are a largish company, settle somewhere north of £10K. Push for even more if you like, this idiot deserves all he gets.

Gah. The agents are refusing to hand out the references due to "company policy".

Anyone got any cool Acts of parliment (Data Protection Act? Does that apply to printed as well as electronic versions?) that I can throw at them.

[Cactus]

Good comments so far guys keep it up thanks. They are getting rid of contractors purely because of budget reasons and unstability which contractors bring to the team. as us contractors could walk out at any time?

I feel im gonna have to put my case forward and produce some kind of calculation figures to show how much difference there is between me as a contractor and perm, and whether we can bridge the gap?

Any ideas what percentage agency release fees are?

You could leave it to the last minute if possible or make noises that you won't be able to commit to the Permie position offered until after March/April because of "personal circumstances" (Then you'll really know how serious they are @ keeping you). I'm not sure how relevant this is or how much people take notice of them but you could get your notice period increased to say 1 month. A bit more security for the end client.

[cook]

from having various friends that are contractors (yes i know i am still a scummy agent), they have said that its not worth it going direct mainly because of the tax and IR35 etc and as for perm, dont take the pay cut. you get paid what you do because you're worth it.

Thanks for admitting that you're an agent but this is nonsense - in fact, the opposite is true. Going direct is better from an IR35 point of view. According to the PCG guide to freelancing (Section 22.2), 'if you can find direct work it may help your IR35 status and you may be able to negotiate a favourable rate.'

You almost have to admire agents - misleading people about IR35 as a sales technique. Tut tut.

[Sockpuppet]

They don't need to know you've not actually suffered a loss yet. You might well do in the future though, if someone else requests a ref from this company/person.
Tim is right, I was a little hasty with the wording of your approach, although if their HR people are switched on, they will realise that you could damage them if it went to court. The potential negative publicity should be worth a few quid to you, for a start.

This place caves under negative publicity. They got on the wrong side of the Newchurch Guinea pig protesters and last just over a week before they caved .... sweet.

Back to the original topic. I have a feeling that the direct position might turn out to be a permie offer.

Sucks TBH

[Mordac]

They don't need to know you've not actually suffered a loss yet. You might well do in the future though, if someone else requests a ref from this company/person.
Tim is right, I was a little hasty with the wording of your approach, although if their HR people are switched on, they will realise that you could damage them if it went to court. The potential negative publicity should be worth a few quid to you, for a start.

[Sockpuppet]

I've not suffered a loss though. I spent 2 weeks on holiday and walked into a job paying double. Might ask for it anyway just to see what they actually wrote...pimp told me it was bad...need to see how bad.

[tim123]

Tell them they have 7 days to offer you a decent cash incentive not to take this to court.

Such language is technically blackmail. You have to be very careful with the form of words that you use to stay the right side of the line, even if the end result is the same.

You need to say, "I have suffered a loss"..."entitling me to compensation"..."if you do not offer this compensation willingly"..."I will sue for it".

tim

[tim123]

I was thinking about that. Are the agency required to give me the reference? I read something about it being confidential?

Yes and it's not. The DPA requires that they make the information available to you.

tim

[XLMonkey]

I was thinking about that. Are the agency required to give me the reference? I read something about it being confidential?

My good friend the data protection act means that you are entitled to a copy of the reference if you ask them. That's one of the reasons why most smart organisations have a policy of not providing references, just confirming start and end dates of employment.

[premiere]

I went permie once from a contract, biggest mistake of my contracting career so far, Client basically lied about the job, once you are permie they have you by the short and curlies, it's then when the politics kick in.

Abuse of support rosters, pointless reviews of any little thing, no creativity, basically , lied to who my boss would be, given a position much lower (but not mentioned nor agreed), reporting to (get this) some f*** clown with 8 months experience in the toolset when I had 10 years.............what a joke.

I lasted 8 weeks as a permie and walked.......out to another contract, I sat in the HR office and said plainly that having been lied to I would rather not discuss anything other than the fact that I am leaving, they asked for an "exit" interview and I told them to shove it and figure out their own mistakes, I'm certainly not going permie again for a long long time.....

unless its a very senior role and the lucre's better than the contract rate.

The last perm job I had.....my manager argued the toss and insisted that I kept my pager and mobile on in case they needed me for support purposes whilst I was at the hospital with my wife as she was giving birth to our son!!

Needless to say I told her to feck off...in fact I told the company to feck off and have contracted ever since.

[lukemg]

A number of factors determine the rate you can get. You can manipulate some of them but most are out of your control.
These include :
Supply of and demand for that skill in that location - SAP (barriers to entry, strong demand = higher rates to attract candidates), support monkey(anyone can do it= big supply= peanut rates).
Manipulation by the agent - talking down the market to get you to take a lower rate either in response to tight client or to boost their own cut.
The newbie factor - you're new, even the crap rate is more than you get now so you take it and the market takes another hit.
Things that don't affect the rate - how much your mortgage/expenses are, what you think you are worth, comparison with other professions.
If the market can get someone cheaper who can do the same job as well as you, rates fall across the board, even if there is a lag before the changes kick through.